The Gentleman in the Public House:

Ah, the night is young sir. Is feels strange, does it not, to be sat here in a warm room were nothing stirs but the log in the fire and the ear of the resting dog? Men like you and I have seen different nights from these. I would not change that for all the money in the world. Would you sir?

There was once this gentleman I happened to chance on. It was at the time of the forest fire that burnt half of the pine forests to the north of the great mountains. Yes, it was not in recent times. The children that play on the streets laugh while they swear about the fire. Not you or I would sir. For we know better. So it was after the fire had burnt down and left a shame where a forest stood, and it was not just the forest it burnt. Our little house by the woods was now a heap of ashes at best and my brother and I had moved to the village nearby which was at that time called Spade. There in a public house, on a sunny thirsty afternoon, sat this young gentleman, in shirt and tie, drinking his ale and watching the world with half a smile. He was genial. He loved to talk but when he talked good sir, we listened. Full of mirth and anecdotes were his sayings.
“I love the far East sirs.” He says. “One tends to think around here that the peoples of the world be very different from each other and that the East in particular be a lot of uncivilized people that know not to use a spoon when need be. Right you are. They know not to use a spoon my sirs, but they will sooner not eat their meal than put a man at displeasure over their ignorance of spoons. They will wait till you have had you meal and left with a full stomach. They will pretend to be full themselves even while their insides cry of hunger. All this because they want only to be polite and not spoil your appetite. Now that is what I call true civilization.”
We shook our heads in wonder.

“I was with a family once sirs, who had the misfortune of having a rather large number of children. This was in the area between China and India. A no man’s land really, but a land with people never the less. This man, the father of the house took me into his modest home and paraded his children before me. There were about thirteen present, all very clean and disciplined. He then ordered them to bring us a meal. There were about three dishes full of meat and rice. I ate to the health of my host while he filled me in on their family history. A very pleasant affair it was. It was only later when I visited some others in the area that I learnt that this man was a poor as a rat. He had pawned his wife’s sole jewel to pay for the meat. His wife who had carefully kept from making her appearance, was too ashamed of her tattered clothes to be seen. And all along that man treated me like I was a king and he another. I can hardly say how much it touched me dear sirs to see this form of hospitality.”

We nodded, bringing up pictures of yellow skinned men and bowls of rice in our heads.
“I believe in the Bible sirs, and so I call myself a Christian. But I have known men of other religions and their faith has shown me not to be so conceited as to consider my opinion better than theirs. For I think if there be a God he makes no difference between them and us. The rich among them know no want, just as our rich know no want. Their poor know hunger in its true form as our poor do. So if there be a God, my sirs, he turns a blind eye to all of us equally. Who then are we to hold differences.”

We were convinced this man was a philosopher. Yes, he was young, even so he was far more knowledgeable than all of us put together. I must say sir, at that point I wished, even if for a very short minute, that I had not lived my life here on the mountains. I wished I had travelled to the Far East and eaten bowls of rice. I was convinced it was the elixir of knowledge. I felt like a country fool.

We would see him each night at the public house. He would talk and we would listen. Then one evening after a heavy bout of drinking, this gentleman made to go to his bed for the night. The next morning he was found dead. They found him still in his shirt and tie, lying by the road corner. He was dead. The government officials came and found his papers. They said he belonged to a small town off London. They said he had certainly never travelled outside the country. They said he had no money and was making away with some loose change from the keeper of the public house when he met his sudden demise.

THE MEMOIRS OF RED JOHNSON: The Woman who sought her husband.

As I sit here this evening, on this heavy chair by the fire, the window betrays the red- faced sun. The rum is good and my glass is half full. None could be more blessed than me, except perhaps this dog that lies on the rug by my feet, gazing at the logs in the splendid fire. You Sir, seem mellow and content yourself. I think you have had a hard day. For there is a certain peace, a satisfying warmth, that can only come from having braved the hard whip of each day’s trials and emerged alive. We live still and so we mustn’t complain. For there are some less fortunate than us. They have lost their breath even while their eyes were open. Not that they were any less brave, only less fortunate.

Yes, Sir. My brown shoulders do not droop with age. That is more for the man who has tended to his sheep on the hills. For men like us, who have lived a life less enviable, no fatigue is come with age. We cannot afford to wilt. We will sooner die. Yet I would choose no other way to live than the one I know. To each his own.
I was saying the rum is good, and right I am. It is at times like these that one may let the mind wander for a bit. First to the lovely porcelain plate on the wall; a painting of a wolf in the snow. Then to the soft wool of the rug beneath my feet. Then to the pattern on the window made by the cold wind outside. Memories. Plenty of those have I. At my age Sir, it should hardly surprise anyone that I have memories enough to last us through this night and many more. Only if you insist will I share them with you.

There was Sir, a woman I once knew. Ah, the very mention makes you smile. Do not assume, Sir, that I embark on some account of courtship and romance. No. It does not suit me, Sir, to follow the skirt of a fair maiden. There have been times, I admit, when I have liked, even more than liked, some fair maiden or another, usually because she be the owner of a kind smile, or because she carry in her eyes the blue of a sea I have never beheld. But those have proved to be passing flights of fancy. A flower be best on its own branch. Once plucked and forced into a vase, it only droops and dies. I am sure you think otherwise. For some of us, however, it is only an unconquered mountain or an enemy’s land that delights. The price is heavy and we ain’t afraid to pay it.

But this woman Sir, that I now talk of was none of that. She was neither a flower nor a price. She had the misfortune of having a husband who was very prone to quarrel and vice. Of course he was loving to her, and they even begot two pretty children, I now forget their names. Round headed children with rosy cheeks, one boy and the other a girl, both of the same size, less trouble I am sure than what most children be. So this woman was a good wife and they pulled along. Then her bugger of a husband, went and had a good fist shake with the Jefferson brothers. You have heard of them I am sure. They used to be powerful in those days, manning the land around the thirteenth mountain from the lake, and making a general nuisance of themselves. They kept steeling his chickens, or so her husband claimed. No one believed him. They had no reason to. She spoke little and generally let her husband do the talking. She was well- brought up, she was. But then one day, her husband disappeared. Some said the Jefferson brothers had taught him a lesson, probably the last lesson he learnt. Some said he had eloped with the Parson’s daughter, though I would never believe that for once. People kept coming up with explanations of what had happened, like they always do. It is a common hatred that all of mankind share for the unexplained. After about a year, everyone decided he was dead. So he was dead.

This wife of his, however, would not hear of it. She believed he was alive. It is hard, no doubt, for any God- fearing wife to consider her husband dead while she has not proof of it. Hope lives on, particularly when nothing else does. She had them two little doves to see to. Times were hard. So she did what no one wanted her to. She left the two babies with the widow Ramsey and got on top of the one horse her husband owned. It was an old horse but it rode better under the lightness of her weight than it did under its true master. She told the village she was going to look for her man. For surely, she said, if he had not come home to see his kin and blood for a whole year, he must be in some grave danger. She would have to find him.
She set off, one misty morning, having cried at having to leave her pretty ones behind. How they wailed, those two tiny muttons. She gave the widow her last penny and bade her to see to her children. No one saw her for a long time after.

Now we men would see her now and again, galloping over the big mountains in the north. Now and again, we would see a glimpse of her big skirt as she rode across the cedar woods behind the mountains. It was a miracle how she lived, with no money and no man. No one knew how she got on. Once Tom the rascal said he had met her in one of the little public houses in the village to the west of the lake, where the toothless tribes live. He said she had stopped for a drink of water. The horse seemed older than before and she too seemed tired. She told him she had looked in all the villages to the south of the lake and was on her way to the rocky land further north. She still hoped to find her husband. Tom, being the rascal that he is, told her that it was all in vain, for her husband was surely dead and she a widow. But she only smiled and said that might be the case but she would not give up till she was certain of it.

Sometimes, on evening like these, as I sit by the fire with my rum, I do feel for that poor thing. How sad it must be for a woman to have to leave her dear brood behind and go out on horse- back in search of her wayward husband. I wonder how she must love him to want to destroy her everything for him, even her womanly nature. Then sometimes, when the rum is strong and in my head, I think she knew the truth. She knew he was dead. She knew she wouldn’t find him. She only wanted to roam the county-side without a care in the world. How evil the rum is, even as I love it so.

The Winged Man (Part 4)

There it was. He found the page where The Winged Man had been slighted by a universal villain. He studied the expression on his face. It was shaded into black, on one side. There was a frown, but not one that showed weakness; rather one that showed patience. For the great need patience enough to keep them company while they await their greatness to be revealed. They must tolerate the mud slung on their faces, because in due course, the brilliance of their true self will be revealed. The boy went back to bed, to a sleep full of powerful dreams, each one a reflection of those books under his bed. His head was like the ceilings in some cheap motels; lined with several mirrors, in different shapes and colours but all mirroring the same image.
The next day, at games, the boy walked up to Billy. Billy’s friends all looked at the boy in surprise but Billy only grinned. The boy put on a frown, one that did not show weakness.

“Das darf nicht wahr sein,” the boy said in as loud a voice as he could call up from his belly. Everyone stopped playing and looked at the boy. “This cannot be true. You cannot win against me. For your victory would be a perpetual assault to the truth in human nature. We are divine when in our true elements. I will not bow to the Bal of vile ignorance. You may have won the battle but I will win the war. You can but only await your impending doom in silence.”

No one spoke a word. The boy walked away quickly, out of the playground, out of sight. Billy felt a tingle in his belly, a strong urge to burst out laughing. The other children decided they now had one person they would all avoid. And the girl of the Valentine’s Day card solemnly stared at her shoes.

Oh and the boy, when he grew up, still wore glasses.

The Winged Man (Part 3)

That night, as soon as the lights in the house were turned off, the boy crawled out of bed and reached out for a book under the bed. He knew exactly what he was looking for. He turned it to the right page. It was all there, in black, white and gray. The Winged Man had his grip around the enemy. He flung the enemy around the railing of a high building. The enemy swung freely, his life depended on the grip The Winged Man had on his collar. The boy stared at the grip. He could see the veins on The Winged Man’s arms. He could see his muscles move. He could hear the throbbing of both hearts. He could smell the fear. The enemy would have to pay for what he did. The price would be his life. The Winged Man let go. The muscles in his arm relaxed. His breath grew steadier as he watched Billy fall down the building. Gravity. Death. It was all very natural. The enemy died as he hit the road below with a loud thud. Billy’s blood coloured the black tar road.

The boy wondered if there was a sequence where one of the blondes was slighted. Unfortunately there was not. So he shut the book in frustration.

He moved to the window. It was a moonless sky but the stars were aplenty. They seem so far away, he thought. Did The Winged Man ever gaze at the stars in wonder? Did Billy ever gaze at the stars in wonder? A sudden urge gripped the boy’s heart. He wanted to say something clever to Billy; something that will make Billy re-think his previous rudeness. He wanted Billy to be sorry for what he had done. He wanted the enemy to crave his friendship. Maybe something in German! German sounded so clever. What if Billy didn’t understand German? Anyone who read a lot of comics would know a least a bit of German. What if Billy never read a comic in his life? The thought made the boy’s tongue stick to the upper part of this mouth. What kind of a person never read comics? An unfortunate person, he decided. With this the primary difference between the two of them dawned upon the boy. Billy did not know The Winged Man. He felt a sense of pity for Billy.

He reached his hand under the bed again, this time pulling out an older edition. It explained how The Winged Man found his vocation. The boy took off his shirt and looked at his back in the mirror. He strained his neck to be able to see, in the mirror, the portion below his shoulder blades. He stretched his hand to feel the skin there. He also felt the protruding edge of some bone. No. There was no scar, no lump, not even a stray hair to show the start of a wing. It would never happen to him.

He looked at the book again, turning a couple of pages.

The Winged Man (Part 2)

The trust only grew with time. The Winged Man did no wrong and the boy grew to depend on this quality in The Winged Man. He made a mask for his own face out of paper. He kept it hidden under his pillow at night. One never knows when one will need it. He wrote the initials (WM) in his note book. He made a scrap-book containing a flow chart of all the things The Winged Man had done so far. It was all in the right sequences. Inside his Physics text book, on the last page, he wrote ‘WM Rulez’. And the nightly rendezvous continued, by the torch light, by the moon light, as the stars gazed in amusement, a hero was born.

On Valentine’s Day, Marie who sat behind him in class gave him a card. He did not give one back to her. She was alright, but she was not blonde.

One unfortunate Thursday, Billy was bored during Games hour. Billy looked at the boy. The boy was short for his age. He had very thick glasses, owing to his cylindrical vision being week. The doctor said it was because he did not eat enough carrots. Now his mother only gave him carrots for dinner. One of the stars in the sky would have said something about too much reading in the dark, but it bit its tongue and remained silent. The boy did not care about his glasses. They would be gone by the time he grew up, he thought. It was not important. Billy kept looking at the boy. Then he spoke to the boy.
‘What’s your name again?’
‘It’s John.’
‘On?’
‘No. John, with a J.’
‘No. It’s John with a P.’
So saying Billy squeezed his water bottle right onto the boy’s trouser. A dark stain formed on the front and along his legs. Everyone was laughing. The boy did not see who was laughing but he heard. He heard Marie too. She was laughing. Women are such a waste of time, he said in his head. That evening, on the bus home, he kept thinking. What would WM have done? I know. He would have bashed Billy’s face in.

The boy did not bash Billy’s face in. He just did not.

The Winged Man (Part 1)

It was there, right there, on the page in front of his eyes. He strained to see in the dim light of his night torch. He crawled, book in hand. He crept closer to the window and drew the curtains. The moonlight might help him see better. He was not yet 13 years old, but he lived a hundred lives, all at that time of the night, by the light of the battery- torch. He had climbed walls, pinned down villains with his bare hands, cracked their skull with one blow, made them confess, made them repent… he had saved the day, saved the world… all by the light of that torch, he had romanced pretty blondes, broken their hearts even, all for a superior cause, a cause that was his obsession, a cause that was his all. He had done this, without moving any further than the distance between his bed and the window close by. He had done it again and again, in his head, in his soul and through what he saw on those pages. He had a copy of every single edition ever published. His personal savior ‘The Winged Man’ had won again. He was right now on the terrace of a sky scraper, his cloak flying in the moon-lit breeze, holding his enemy by the neck. His enemy was the enemy of the world. The Winger Man was doing his duty.

John had been in this relationship with The Winged Man for about a year now. Since it started, it took over his life bit by bit. First it was the waiting for every new edition, the impatience, the longing, then it became compulsive, once he got the new edition he would read till it was over, on the bus to school, in the bath, in class, in place of his home work, even while he was playing rugby. He would just be reading. Once he had read it through, he would keep thinking about it, live and re-live it in his mind. It was like a song playing in his head. Then he would dream about it, while he was sleeping and while he was not. He would add to what he had read, fill in the gaps, with his own imagination. He would make explanations for the past and predict the future.

It was that face, always in his eyes, the masked face. No one had seen The Winged Man without the mask but the boy had. For we are not born with a mask on our faces. We make one along the way. To hide the pain, the embarrassment, the insecurities. To unlock the power within, the naked animal power, the power for cruelty.

Right now, by the window, he read again, what he had read a hundred times before, on that same page. He ran his palm along the page. The feel of coarse paper sent a tingle down his back. The put his head down, the smell of print went through his nostrils to the bowels of his being. The Winged Man would never fail. He was born to win.

Cool Waters (Part 4)

The girl would wait all day, suffer the mundane routine of life, only so she could at nightfall escape to this other secret world where she would meet the woman she wanted to be. She began to wonder if this woman was a princess of some sort, for she wore such beautiful clothes. She knew there were no princesses; we lived in a democracy, didn’t we? Yet that feeling that all that was taken for fact in the real world did not make sense in the world that the Woman was a part of.

During the day, the girl would busy herself making little baubles she could take to the woman. She would cut up bits of coloured paper and make flowers out of them. She would stitch bits of cloth together to make bunting. She would think of clever things to say to her. None of these really pleased the woman, who remained aloof even while she was polite. The girl tried not to be dismayed. She told herself, it is understandable that this princess would not like my paper flowers for they give no fragrance. My bunting is untidy and the things I say are, after all, childish. I must not worry, for, with time I will speak like this lady does; with politeness and restrain.

Finally one night as the two of them stayed by the cool waters, the woman seemed lost in thoughts. The girl had never seen her pensive and she was amazed. So the princess was capable of worry as well! Who could have guessed! The moon rays fell on the water and the ripples looked like stringed pearls. The queen of pearls herself sat on the swing and stared at her own reflection. ‘What is the matter?’ the girl asked in a low, scared voice, ‘Is something bothering you?’ The woman looked up and looked straight into the little girl’s eyes. ‘I want to ask you something’, she said at length, ‘Why do come here little one? Why do come see me?’ The girl blushed. How was she to put into words the truth? How do you tell someone that you admire them more them anything else in this world? How do you tell someone you want to be them? What if you are too scared to speak? ‘I like you,’ the girl managed to lisp. The woman laughed. I will laugh like that someday, girl said to herself. ‘You like me?’ the woman echoed, ‘How wonderful!’ Why was she behaving like she did not know that. Had it not been obvious from the start? ‘How much do you like me, little one?’ The girl looked up and stopped blushing. How could she answer that? She loved her a lot, but how much was a lot. She remained silent. The woman spoke again, ‘Do you love me enough to do anything for me, little one?’ The girl wanted to nod. She wanted to say something in the affirmative. She wanted to assure the woman that she would even die for her? Would she? She remained silent. ‘Then listen to me,’ said the woman, ‘If you like me, bring me something dear to you. Bring me something you cannot do without. Not these bits of paper or these rags of cloth. Bring me… bring me your father.’ The girl shuddered inside. ‘Go then. Do as I say, if you like me.’

The girl got up and walked away. She walked in even, gradual steps. She did not run like she always did. She walked as if she were old. She did not turn back to look, not once. She went back home to her own bed. After that night, she never went back to see the woman. Every night she slept in her own bed, a dreamless sleep, peaceful and content. She did not think of the woman, not once.

Sometimes the girl would be very bored again. Then, she would play with other children or complain about how she did not like tennis or cricket. Sometimes she would read books, but only books without pictures. She was happy, at least as happy as most of us. Sometimes she was sad, but no matter how sad she was, she never went back to the cool waters, not once.
***